The Italian was able to overcome a difficult 2019, when he was completely overshadowed in the Petronas-Yamaha team by the then rookie Fabio Quartararo, both that year in the satellite team of the Japanese brand.
“Fabio’s appearance completely distorts the perception of reality,” Franco Morbidelli said then, when he was engulfed by the force of the young French driver. “His performances have changed perspectives, mine and everyone else’s. This is reality and you have to adapt, it’s just time to get better, “he added.
And the improvement came spectacularly in the fateful 2020, the year of the pandemic, with a calendar compressed to 14 races and many of them repeating the scenario, but which Morbidelli knew how to take advantage of to have his best season in the queen class, finishing runner-up in the world, behind Joan Mir, in a brilliant season finale, in which he won two of the last four races and scored 71 points out of a possible 100.
Despite not having the best material available to the Japanese factory, “Yamaha did not underestimate me, but I was the last in its ranking”, he said then, the Italian showed that he could aspire to everything and with the inertia of an end of course spectacular, 2021 was presented as a year to aspire to everything.
The reality, however, was diametrically the opposite. The season did not start well when Yamaha denied him, for financial reasons, a new bike, so he had to continue with the M1 2019 from the last two years, which strained the relationship between the factory and the rider, whose best result was a third place in Jerez. “The gods of motorcycling have rewarded me with this podium,” said a deeply moved Morbidelli.
But far from signifying a turning point, that result was not accompanied by good news. In the next Grand Prix, in France, Morbidelli starred in a strange action that was to be the beginning of a long ordeal. During FP3, in a bike change rehearsal in front of the team’s garage door, the Italian jumped off his bike and walked towards the second prototype, suffering a crash. They had to carry him in their arms.
Morbidelli explained that he had been dragging a problem in his left knee for years, since 2015, but that until then it had not prevented him from driving normally. He would still dispute four more races at the handlebars of the Petronas M1, Le Mans (16th), Mugello (16th), Barcelona (9th) and Sachsenting (18th) on June 20, 2021, five days before going through the operating room to solve the injury that dragged in the meniscus and the anterior cruciate ligament of the left knee.
During convalescence, in which he missed five races, Yamaha went through a divorce with Maverick Viñales, with whom he parted ways, and made the decision to promote Morbidelli to the official team and separate him from the one he had been, since his arrival in MotoGP, his track engineer, Ramón Forcada , an important detail when it comes to understanding the crisis in which the Roman is immersed.
After his reappearance, on September 17, at the San Marino Grand Prix, in which he finished 18th, until the end of the course, already as a factory driver, Franco disputed four more races: Austin (19th), Emilia Romagna (14th) , Algarve (17th) and Valencia (11th), where the previous year he had achieved his last victory.
Supposedly recovered from surgery and with an official factory motorcycle, not only have things not gone better for the Italian this year, but he has become a shadow of what he was and, above all, of what was intuited could become.
Of the eleven events that we have had this year, he has crashed in two, has not finished in the top 10 in eight and his best result was 7th place in the chaotic Mandalika race (Indonesia), which places him 19th out of the general with 25 points, 147 behind the leader of the contest, his young teammate Quartararo.
The summary is that, from the operation on June 25 of last year, until the Dutch Grand Prix, on June 26, in a calendar year, Morbidelli has contested 16 races with the official bike, managing only once to finish between top 10 and living a real ordeal.
With more than a month of summer break and nine races still ahead of him this year, the Italian hopes to reverse the situation, and although he is calm because he has another year of contract with Yamaha, until the end of 2023, he is aware that today in day no one can take anything for sure. “Whoever is calm about the future is stupid,” he told Motorsport.com during the last French Grand Prix, when there were rumors about it. “I am calm if we speak in terms of contract. But who knows,” he added.
A peace of mind that Yamaha does not question: “Franco is going to continue next year absolutely safe. We have never considered doing without him,” said Massimo Meregalli bluntly at the last Grand Prix of Catalonia to whom he signs these lines.
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Photo de: Yamaha MotoGP
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